Budapest Jewish Community Transformed into Voluntary Association

October 24, 1952

VIENNA (Oct. 23)

The one-time important Budapest Jewish Community, which had a status of representative of the city’s Jewish population vis-a-vis the Hungarian Government, has been transformed into an association with a voluntary membership, it was reported here today.

This change came about at a conference of representatives of the Jewish community who met to consider a new constitution for the community in the light of the “actual position” of the community and the fact that the Jewish population has decreased. After careful screening, the original 300 delegates to the convention were reduced to 180, according to the report received here.

Explaining the new constitution at a general meeting of the Budapest Jewish Community, Lajos Stoekler, its president, said that the new charter was necessary because “the life of the community had to be accommodated to new circumstances and new requirements, and must be based on a voluntary association of individuals.” He also announced that the Jewish institutions maintained by the community had been centralized in one building, with the transfer of secondary schools for Jewish boys and girls to the Rabbinical Seminary. By this move, he said, the Jewish schools had been enabled to better carry out their function “to supply reserves for the training of rabbis.”